Negotiations over a pro-union bill in the Colorado House collapsed over the weekend after labor officials rejected Gov. Jared Polis’ attempt to expand talks to include other deeply contentious pieces of legislation.
Democratic lawmakers on Monday instead pushed forward to pass the bill, potentially setting up a veto showdown.
The policies that the governor tried to reopen included cuts to restaurant workers’ wages, an expansion of charter schools, and privatizing the state’s last-resort insurer for workers’ compensation. The details of the discussions were confirmed by five people with direct knowledge of them, including House Speaker Julie McCluskie and bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Bacon.
Polis raised the issues with unions after business groups rejected Polis’ most recent attempt to resolve negotiations over , which would undo a unique provision of Colorado’s labor law that labor and Democrats argue is anti-union. Labor groups had previously agreed to Polis’ last proposal.
The attempt to broaden the talks instead helped end them completely. As a result, lawmakers finally brought the bill to the House floor first thing Monday morning, passing it on an initial voice vote.
The measure now needs one final vote before it moves to Polis.
The governor has privately told legislators he will veto the bill unless they secure the support of business groups like the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and Colorado Concern.
That’s prompted weeks of negotiations over how to reform Colorado’s second-election requirement, which holds that organized workers must pass a second vote — and clear a 75% threshold — before they can negotiate the provision of union contracts that deals with dues and fees. SB-5 would eliminate the second election entirely, to the alarm of business groups.
Negotiations stretched into Friday, as the clock on the legislative session — which ends Wednesday — ticked down.
Loren Furman, the CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, confirmed Monday morning that business groups rejected Polis’ last proposal. It would have eliminated the second election in certain circumstances, based on election turnout and union organizers’ margin of victory in the first election, which is what establishes the union in the first place. She said the groups stuck to their final of three compromises, which proposed higher thresholds than Polis offered and unions were willing to accept.
Furman said she did not know Polis had sought to broaden the talks to include other topics like tipped wage cuts.
After the labor groups accepted and businesses rejected Polis’ last proposal, the governor then gave SB-5’s supporters a choice: They could go back and reach a deal with business officials. Or they could move forward with his final offer — even without business groups’ approval — so long as SB-5’s supporters were willing to open talks on separate and deeply contentious proposals.
Those policies — cutting some tipped workers’ minimum wages, allowing for more charter schools in certain areas and privatizing the state’s workers’ comp insurer — had been debated at various levels in the Capitol earlier this year. All had either been shelved outright or significantly watered down.
But they were considered so radioactive to SB-5 supporters that some officials involved in the negotiations privately wondered if the governor was intentionally offering them something they would reject.
In a statement Saturday night announcing that talks had broken down, Dennis Dougherty, the executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, accused business groups of walking away from negotiations. He said unnamed “elected leaders are kowtowing to corporate special interests over Colorado’s working families.”
In a Monday afternoon statement, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman did not address Polis’ attempts to broaden the talks into other contentious areas. She said the governor was “disappointed in this outcome but appreciates the robust conversation between sponsors, business, and labor on this bill, and he hopes both sides find a way forward in the future that reflects our shared goals of prosperity, fairness, and opportunities for workers.”
With negotiations over, Democratic lawmakers are set to pass SB-5. That would then force Polis to decide whether to veto a Democratic priority bill that is likely to pass with overwhelming support from lawmakers of his own party.
“The House Democrats broadly support this approach, and they want to see that policy move through the House and be presented to the governor for signature,” McCluskie said Saturday night.
Bacon, a Denver Democrat who’s sponsoring SB-5, said Polis’ offer — to sign his version of SB-5 in exchange for discussions about contentious policies — would’ve been a “net loss” for Democratic lawmakers and unions, and she didn’t understand why he was broaching them at all.
“These topics are ones that this caucus has already said no to,” she said of House Democrats. “And the fact that the governor would put that on the table for (a minor change in labor law) and still have a second vote (by unions) — even business didn’t put that on the table.”
McCluskie said the compromise that unions accepted was “reasonable.” She praised both sides for engaging in good faith but said she was “really disappointed that (business officials) walked away.”
Furman, of the chamber, said business groups had negotiated earnestly and that business groups’ three offers showed “significant” movement. But ultimately, she said, her side couldn’t agree to Polis’ or unions’ counter-offers.
Lawmakers had considered voting on SB-5 on Saturday, when the House convened for much of the day, but held off in a last-ditch bid to reach a deal.
The potential impacts of the SB-5 negotiations collapsing — and of a potential Polis veto — are significant.
Had they reached an acceptable deal on the bill, labor unions had pledged to withdraw a 2026 ballot proposal that would require businesses to have just cause before firing someone. A competing ballot measure — to enact an anti-union “right-to-work” law in the state — has also been proposed and also would’ve been taken down had the negotiations borne fruit.
During debate Monday, multiple Democratic lawmakers called on Polis to sign SB-5 once it reaches his desk.
“I would think as the figurehead of the Democratic Party, he will do what Democrats ask him to do and what Democrats have worked on incessantly to get done,” Bacon said. “And I have faith that he will do it.”
